Amy M. Burns

Elementary Music Technology and Integration

Amy M. Burns has taught PreK-grade 4 general music for over 25 years at Far Hills Country Day School (FH) (https://www.fhcds.org/). She also teaches grade 5 instrument class, directs the FH Philharmonic, is the Performing Arts Department Manager, and teaches privately in the after-school conservatory after being the director for over 20 years. She has authored four books and numerous articles on how to integrate tech into the elementary music classroom. She has presented many sessions on the topic, including four keynote addresses in TX, IN, St. Maarten, and AU. She is the recipient of the 2005 Technology in Music Education (TI:ME) Teacher of the Year, the 2016 New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA) Master Music Teacher, the 2016 Governor’s Leader in Arts Education, and the 2017 NJ Nonpublic School Teacher of the Year Awards. Her most recent publication, Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches (2020), published by Oxford University Press (OUP) is available from OUP and Amazon. Burns is also the Community Coordinator for Midnight Music (MMC) at https://midnightmusic.com/, the General Music Chair for NJMEA Board of Directors, and the Elementary Music Consultant for MusicFirst (https://www.musicfirst.com/), a company built by music educators for music educators, dedicated to helping music teachers and their students make the most of technology in the classroom.

#techtiptuesday MFE #8 - New Features in YuStudio!

April 23, 2024  /  Amy M. Burns

This #techtiptuesday video gives you a quick look at the new features in MFE’s YuStudio, a full-featured, web-based Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) with movie-scoring capabilities. If you would like a more in-depth view of the new features where I show you how to use them to create an ABA template for your students where they will improvise the melody for the B Section, please click the link in the description below (video is coming this weekend). 

#1 Loops to Drag to Duplicate Clip

Easily create duplicate loops by dragging the +> at the top right of the selected clip. This new improvement is wonderful. Though my students did not have any concerns using command D or control D to duplicate their clips, this is so much nicer for them as they can now do this with their touch-screen devices or their device’s keyboard by clicking and dragging on the +> at the top right of the clip.

#2 Performance Improvements

When my fourth graders were using YuStudio earlier this year, they ran into some problems when all 28 of them were using the program on the school internet at the same time. There were latency issues. Some synthesizers and effects can be a bit power-hungry and can cause lower-powered computers, like inexpensive Chromebooks, to struggle. If this happens to you or your students, you can now 'bounce' the track to audio and then deactivate the original track to improve performance. 'Bouncing' converts the track to audio and 'bakes-in' the effects. This allows you to deactivate any effects and synths that may be making your computer struggle.

#3 Bounce full tracks or just clips

Expanding on that, record any audio or instrument track, or just individual parts, to a new audio track. This will include any effects and automation. You can also bounce just a clip.

#4 Deactivate the track

Deactivate a track so that none of its clips, instruments, or effects play. This frees up processing power and improves performance. This helps greatly when you have numerous students working in the same program on a school network.

#5 On-screen keyboard improvements

• Improved highlighting of the selected musical key.

• A new piano-style keyboard design.

Using the “Highlight the Selected Keyboard”, the students can see the notes that will work well with the assigned key and scale. They can then record into the track by playing the keyboard on the screen. In addition, by clicking on the device’s keyboard view, you can use the keyboard to record with a pentatonic scale.

Coming soon!

To check out a more in-depth look into these features, please click the link. And don’t forget to try our MFE with a 30-day free trial. Stay tuned for more MFE tech tips on #techtiptuesday next week!

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